Fall
by Trinity005
Summary: Elliot's feelings, post Rage.


"**Fall"**

Summary: Elliot's feelings, post-'Rage'.

Disclaimer: Elliot isn't mine. Unfortunately.

A/N: Thanks to Jill for beta-reading this and for encouraging me.

* * *

I guess there's really nothing setting me apart from Rickett. That son of a bitch may be right after all. I'm just like him. Only I have controls. My wife, my kids, my religion. Like ropes tying my hands together tightly, and keeping me from using these hands to do the justice I long so desperately for. 

What he didn't know was how loose those ropes are right now. I can turn my wrist and I can wiggle my fingers. I can feel the blood running. I hold on as tight as I can, but they're slipping. I can only just feel them with the tips of my fingers.

I've thrown perps against windows and tables. I yell at them, I mock them, I spit in their faces. What will come next? Olivia didn't trust me with a gun near Rickett. I don't blame her. But she should have known I wouldn't kill him.

Or would I? The truth is I'll never know.

It may not seem to, but this uncertainty does mean so much. How can I be a cop if I can't trust my rationality? I wonder how long the others haven't been trusting me either. Today was just the first time someone had no choice but to doubt me openly.

Everything is blurry now. All the rapists I had to face throughout my career are passing in front of me. Even the ones that I put in jail are laughing at me, because they know they had won – at least in the way that matters to them. In what they already took.

I arrested them, but I can't change what they did to those women, to those little girls. I breathe heavily, my body tensing. I see the ones that I couldn't arrest, walking away from me. I can't see their faces, but I know they're laughing at me. My blood boils in my veins. I sit up in my chair, so close to getting up and running after them.

But I hear a click behind me.

"Go home, Elliot," Captain Cragen says as he walks by me, not stopping. I just nod when he turns around and looks at me before leaving for the day.

The wind is icy tonight. I inhale the cold air, hoping it'd calm me down somehow. I wonder aimlessly, trying to forget that I'm a cop, that I deal with rape victims everyday, that in my life, I've spent more time with people I barely know than with my own family. It's not a tragedy; it was just a choice. The funny thing is, I don't regret choosing to do what I do today, and I'm sure I never will. So many people live their lives with their eyes half open. And maybe they're happier. But I've seen it all; at least I've seen. And nothing can erase that.

Cops have to be one of the greatest paradoxes of life. After you join any kind of law enforcement job you're supposed to be smarter than most people. After all, you're there to protect them. But then, you're just more naive than everyone else, because you actually believe you can do something. That you have any control. The worst part is that, if you stop believing, you probably can't do your job anymore. And after a while, it's too hard to keep the illusion running.

I wonder how I ended up lost in this philosophy crap. I'm not a saint; I'm not a hero. I just have a job to do.

I laugh at myself. "Just a job to do." If it were just a job, it wouldn't be eating me alive. It wouldn't make my heart stop every time I saw a little girl lying in a hospital bed after being brutally assaulted.

If it were just a job, I would have already given up. I'd be home right now. Watching the late news.

I take one more breath of frosty air. I can't get Rickett out of my mind. I replay his words, and they always strike me hard. No, I can't let him make me believe I'm like him. I might seem to be just like him, but I don't go around raping and killing 11 year old girls. I don't destroy people's lives.

The smile that was starting to come to my lips quickly fades away. The only lives I've destroyed are the ones of my family. I hurt my loved ones while fighting to save strangers. This is stupid. I didn't destroy the lives of my children, or my wife. Still, as I walk by this street I don't recognize, I'm also walking on the debris of my previous life.

More than my control, it seems that I've lost my foundation. Every step forward is uncertain. I'm careful because if I fall, I might not get back up.

As I look down the precipice, the moment overwhelms me. I'm about to take the next step, but I don't. I remember all the victims I saved, all the criminals I have brought to justice. All the women who are walking calmly on the streets, the little girls who are playing happily in the gardens. They are all somehow possible victims, whom I have saved. At least for today.

I close my eyes, and one more time I breathe the chilly evening air. I've got something setting me apart from Rickett. Something that I can't lose, and that I can't get rid of, even if I want to. My conscience.


End file.
